Al - Moderator

WARNING: Stay far, far away from Dr Hitzig and anyone associated with him (Dr John P Schwinning, Dr James J Malecka, Dr Michael Kassouf, Dr Paul M Goldberg, etc). Take a look at what they did to me. Although it was a long time ago, from what I can tell they haven't changed much. They still say minigrafts and punch tools are better than other methods. Here's a link to what they did to me. http://members.aol.com/LongScars/index.html There are 100s of people suing them. There was a class action as well as several individual lawsuits. Hitzig and company will tell you the lawsuits were dropped because the patients had no case, but that is not true. What Hitzig does is has his lawyers delay proceedings as long as possible until lawsuits start piling up and then closes the corporation and starts a new one the same day in the same offices. What happens then is those suing have no recourse because the corporation they are suing no longer exists even though Hitzig is still practicing in the same location. It's a loophole in the laws that he and his lawyers are great at working with. He's done this several times over the years and has no problems with continuing to close the company and reopen under a new name as many times as he needs to. Here's a link to some of the class actions that were going on: http://www.injuryassist.com/LIMA_Litigation/LIMA_Litigation.htm

I think I hold the record at 25 HTs although I certainly don't recommend that and wish I didn't have it done. It all depends on how many grafts you're moving per HT session. If you're only doing small procedures of 1500 to 2000 then certainly 4 or 5 HTs is possible. If you've had 2 megasessions of 4000+ each then you'd be nearing your limit after those 2. If you're wondering if the grafts will grow after a certain number of sessions, yes they will.

It's been 19 years since my 1st HT (13 years since the last one) and the entire recipient area is still numb. The numbness never went away.

This problem is easily solved. Agio says he lives in Canada. Wantego, meet Agio. Agio, meet Wantego. There you go. Now you know someone in Canada. You can feel better about yourself now. Seriously though, it's not anyone's business what you do in your personal life as long as you aren't hurting anyone doing it.

I had the same problems with it long ago on the 2% and stopped using it. It would make my heart beat really fast and made me feel like I was going to faint. I would have to lie in bed for 15 to 20 minutes until the effects went away. I would get those side effects about 45 minutes after applying it, so it took me a little while to realize it was from the Rogaine.

Doesn't anyone do something in between? Not shaving, but cutting it short, say maybe 1/2 inch. Wouldn't that make it easier on the Dr and techs than keeping the hair longer while not being so bad on the patient? At least then the patient would have a little bit of hair there after the procedure to help hide everything and the native hair will grow back a lot quicker since it already has a little bit of length to it. Of course this all depends on how much native hair the patient has to begin with.

I wore a hair system for 7 months, so I am writing this from experience. They are not real. You'll be afraid to let anyone (hot dates especially!!) touch your hair because they will feel the system, so if they didn't know it was fake before they will know at that point. It's not easy and certainly not fun having to worry if a new girlfriend is going to find out your secret while you're getting intimate. Most of the people who say they like their hair system say that because they feel they have 2 choices which are either be bald or have fake hair. They feel at least they can fool some people and look good once in a while as opposed to always looking bad because they are bald. If they had a choice they would much rather have their own hair, but that isn't a choice. You could say why don't they just get a HT, but some people are afraid to death to even go to a dentist, so in their mind a HT is totally out of the question and not an option. The ones who say a hair system sucks are the ones who would rather be bald than have something fake on their heads. I am one of these people. I think most hair system wearers end up on this side of the fence and get rid of the system after a little while of trying it out. The ones you talk to who have worn one for a long time are of course the ones who would rather have something fake than be bald. If you talk to former hair system wearers you'll get the complete opposite response. EDIT: I should also mention that it gets very expensive over time. You just keep paying every month for maintenance. I don't think it's worth it. On top of regular maintenance you will also need an entire new system every year or so. They usually don't tell you that up front.

I was one of those NW 7s by age 25. My father who is in his late 70s and has slowly been losing hair for the last 40 years still has more than I did when I was 21. My 2 brothers fall somewhere in the middle with one definately heading towards NW 6 although it's taken 20 plus years, so I don't think there's any real average or anything.

Will you also be doing body hair FUE in addition to regular FUE from the head?

LOL! I think you misinterpreted what I was saying. Let me try again. What I meant was this: There's no way to make sure you don't get any scars, but that doesn't stop some Drs from telling you that they can guarantee that you won't have any. Some Drs (Dr Gary Hitzig, Dr John Schwinning, Dr James Malecka of L.I. Medical Associates and later Hitzig/Schwinning Medical Group) will even let you pay extra to get that guarantee. I paid $150 per procedure for the first 9 procedures which comes to $1350 that I paid for a guarantee of no scars and increased hair in the donor area. Obviously that was a major rip-off. I don't even feel I ever gave informed consent because the consent form mentioned nothing about scars or what the procedure actually was supposed to do. You can see my actual consent form here. http://members.aol.com/longscars/htconsentform.jpg That's it. That's the ENTIRE consent form!! Where were Drs like you years ago when I needed you for my lawsuit? Years ago there weren't enough Drs or lawyers that knew enough about a hair transplant to want to take the case. These days every HT Dr does repair cases, but 15 years ago almost all of them refused to touch anyone who had already started a HT from someone else. You were pretty much stuck going to the same place if you wanted to try to continue it.

It's good to know that a full range of hairstyles are possible after having a hair transplant done by a coalition Dr.

I've always gotten my Proscar online from Quality Health Inc. It's the only place I've ever purchased it for the past 11 years. They sell the real thing made by Merck, not a generic. I think if you purchase the real thing you should be OK. http://www.qhi.co.uk/

The hairmax laser comb is expensive. If you want to try a laser comb, look around for a less expensive one.

Well the "doctor" who did most of the work on me turned out to not be a Dr which he admitted to me 5 years afterwards, so who knows what background any of the techs had.

It didn't exist back then, but yes I've been on it for 11 years now. Unfortunately I was already a NW 7 by then. When I first started my HT the area of baldness was about 4 inches wide across the top of my head by 6 inches long from where they made the hairline to the hair at the back. By the time they were done (and where it is now) it was about 7 inches wide by 9 inches long. It looks even larger than that because the scars are visible. I'm think I'm going to have a few consultations soon to see if anything can be done. I'm just getting really nervous lately when I think about it because I don't want to travel all around just to be turned down by 4 or 5 doctors like the last time. I'm hoping things have improved enough since then (10 or 12 years ago I guess) that something can be done.

You guys are so lucky that you didn't have extensive work done the first time around and haven't progressed to a NW 7. If I never progressed past NW 5 I'd have basically a full head of hair the last 15 years from the transplants. My problem was my hair loss was going faster than the hair was being transplanted. In the 9 months it takes for the hair to grow I was losing more than was transplanted. I wish I could just get a current procedure or 2 done and look decent again.

Thank you for your answers. Each individual scar is not bad. They are all very thin scars. The problem is I have many of them. I'd say 7 or 8 rows from ear to ear. It's hard to give an exact number because they are all haphazard and done in sections that were connected to each other. For example I'd have a procedure that made a scar on the left side. Then in a later procedure they would make a scar in the back that sort of added onto the first one. They just kept making new scars each time. I had 25 procedures total, so my entire donor area is scars with very little hair between them to cover them. The additional hair loss pattern over the years has made all of my existing hair very thin (individual hair thickness). Also the additional loss over the years has gone past the upper scars, so the transplanted hair on top has also been thinning and falling out. My uncle has almost no hair at all on the sides of his head and my pattern is the same which is why I had a HT in the first place, so I wouldn't end up being bald like that.

You have to understand that most of it is body hair which grows slower and shorter than head hair. I'd like to see the results in another 3 to 6 months. The big thing in this case is he covered a large area without getting a strip scar. I do think it would look better if he dyed his hair all one color instead of having the different shades from transplanting from different body areas.

I've found that a laser comb works better with Propecia. Laser combs help hair to grow, but don't do very much to stop the fallout. Propecia stops the hair from falling out, but doesn't do much for regrowth. Together you get both. The combination has been working OK for me. Since you already have a laser comb, you may want to try using it again if you decide to start using Propecia.

I would say hair restoration is not always the same thing as a hair transplant. Some companies that do hair systems call what they do hair restoration, but it's just a wig, toupee, hair piece, etc. They'll tell you it will give you your own hair back the way it was before you lost it, but the only reason it's "your" hair is because you bought it. Be careful of that.

I've been interested in transplanting underarm hair to my head. Wouldn't hair from that area be better than taking hair from an arm or leg? Underarm hair grows longer and thicker than other hair on a persons body. It's much more like head hair than arm or leg hair is. You also don't have to worry about scars in the donor area because who will ever see my underarms anyway? On top of that I think you can take it out by strip method rather than FUE.

I don't know if it's illegal or not, but I can assure you it does happen. I paid $150 per procedure to guarantee no scars and an increase in hair in my donor area since that area was beginning to thin as well. You're right they do that which is pretty much the same as a guarantee. The problem is it's a lie and impossible to do. Any hair that does not grow is gone forever. They can't ever replace it.

What is so wrong with what she is saying? All of us here are trying to get our hair back because we don't feel we look good enough without hair. So why is it so bad if a young woman says what we already say about ourselves? Almost every single guy under 30 (and many older than that I'm sure) who is here trying to find ways to get their hair back is doing it at least partly so he can date younger, hotter, better looking women. So we are just as shallow as she is.

I've been bald since before I was 20. At that time my blood pressure was always right about 140/90. Now at age 41 my blood pressure is lower than it was when I was younger. I work out almost every day now, so I think that's a big part of it.

Yes. Finally someone is understanding MY problem. My hair on the sides looks very similar to the picture shown. Unfortunately I did have a series of hair transplants years ago. The hair on the sides was very thin then too and spreading towards the back. Today I have thin wispy miniaturized hair everywhere including the transplanted hair on top which is also falling out (although I've been keeping it there with Proscar over the years). The scars on the sides are easily visible no matter how long I try to grow my hair because the hair around the scars is not enough to cover them. How do you repair something like this?